It’s really hard to imagine encouraging your toddler to touch that expensive A/V setup

As you clean those peanut butter fingerprints off your TV screen, you can blame Kaleidescape. The company just announced a new interface that’s designed for the wee ones. It’s the Kaleidescape Child Remote, which allows the kiddos to find and play movies, without any adult supervision.

It may not win you any “parent of the year” awards, but the company says that it’s actually an industry first, having a certain remote provide a completely different user experience. The new remote is designed to work with the Kaleidescape System, but does not pull up the typical Kaleidescape menu. Instead, it triggers the system to display a simplified child user interface, which offers graphical navigation of movie covers. Like Elmo? He’s there. Thomas? Just find the cover art.

It’s up to the parents to decide what the kids can actually access. Then kids can use the Child Remote, which features nine buttons. Four of them navigate up, down, right and left. One can select the movie, and the remaining buttons are used for play, pause, stop and shuffle.

The child interface is part of Kaleidescape Entertainment Appliance Operating System (KEAOS) version 4.0, a software update that will be available this October. The Kaleidescape Child Remote is available now for $39.

Rachel Cericola - Contributing Writer

Over the past 15 years, Rachel Cericola has covered entertainment, web and technology trends. Check her out at www.rachelcericola.com.